Welcome back, my fellow Mythadorians! As I'm sure you saw, we only have one more week before Dawn of Fantasy's September 30th release! And judging from the posts and influx of inquiry emails, I thought it would be better to take this time to discuss what you can expect on September 30th rather than further overwhelming you with more media. Because let's face it, even I'm having trouble making sense of all the news and press releases showing up left and right across these forums and all over the series of tubes that we call our beloved internet. I would also remember checking our main site (http://dof.reverieworld.com/index.php) for the Newsletter Archives or registering in our forums to receive the newsletter via email, as it lays out the most important news in a much more manageable format.

So today I'm going to tell you what I think is relevant to know regarding release - including what will ship with the game, where to pre-order the game, what the game will look like in three days/three weeks/three months from release, and Reverie's promise to our wonderful fans.

What is Dawn of Fantasy?

Set in the persistent massively multiplayer online 3D world of Mythador, Dawn of Fantasy offers you the chance to write your own chapter in the bloody history of this land. Explore a richly-detailed, endless world, from the high mountain peaks of Southmount in the human realm of <img src="http://dof.reverieworld.com/images/boxart.png" width="200" align="right">Teria to the swamps of Erthee l'Bala of the Wood Elves. Complete dozens of story-driven quests in services of kings, wizards, and fellow adventurers. Interact with thousands of other players through trading, forging alliances, and waging war in both Player vs. Player and Player vs. Environment battles. Build up your villages into towns and then mighty empires, and lay siege to your enemies with great trebuchets, the brute strength of the walking woods, ogres, and dragon mercenaries to reign supreme. Play as three different races - elves, men, and orcs, each of which offers a radically different playstyle and has been given a deep, compelling mythology, a dramatic historical background, and a spectrum of complex political ambitions that drive the story and gameplay.

Dawn of Fantasy represents the culmination of years of development and ambitious ideas generated by gamers from across the world to create something truly exceptional: a persistent world, yours for the taking. Dawn of Fantasy allows players to craft their own game - avenge a fallen Orc king, establish an alliance against the feral Wood Elves, set up a trade route with the noble King Erian of Dagbor, duel trespassing players, slay the mighty dragons, plunder the ancient dwarven caves, or lead your guild to total domination with camps spread across the game world of Mythador. In addition to completing over 50 complex and unique quests per race in the enthralling Online Kingdom campaign, players can put their skills to the test with single-player and multi-player skirmish maps, an epic single-player Conquer-the-World campaign, and by laying siege to dozens of historic NPC towns and unlimited player homelands. And last but not least, purchase a continuous stream of quest packs, new units and items, and other post-release DLC content, with either in-game Influence points or cash, for unlimited playability, in its truest sense.

With a rare combination of the RTS and RPG genres in its persistent MMO environment, this is definitely not your average RTS.

For more information on Dawn of Fantasy, refer to the Official FAQs (http://www.reverieworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1696), the Official Summary (http://dof.reverieworld.com/about.php), and the MMORTS Mode Overview (http://www.reverieworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2016). All of these pages will be updated this weekend to reflect the final retail version.

Where can I get Dawn of Fantasy, what will it cost, what languages will it be available in, and what is its rating?

Come September 30th, Dawn of Fantasy will be available in most major gaming retail stores in Canada, the United States, and western Europe. If Dawn of Fantasy is not sold in your region, it can be downloaded from our website (http://shop.dawnoffantasy.com/). The software for physical copies and downloadable copies is identical, although a purchased serial key will be needed to install the game and play online.

From our website, Dawn of Fantasy is priced at the low cost of $29.99 USD. In stores, the price will likely vary from $30-$40 USD. Those who pre-order will be able to download DOF the second the clock strikes 00:01 on September 30th.

Dawn of Fantasy will be available in English, German, and French. DOF's text will also be available translated into Spanish and Italian, however these languages will not feature new Voice-Overs, although this may change in the future. Users will be able to pick their desired language when installing the game. Head on over here (http://www.reverieworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2709) to learn more about localization.

Dawn of Fantasy is rated T for Teens (ESRB) for Blood, Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, and Violence. This is a common rating for the RTS genre, and any questionable language and themes are non-voiced excerpts of dialog in our campaigns. Online interaction is not rated.

What will be included with release?

Dawn of Fantasy will feature the following modes of play:

The Online Kingdom - the game's premier MMO mode featuring economic management and homeland construction, PvP and PvE warfare, World Map exploration with 12 explorable regions, NPC and Player Interaction, nine homeland regions to choose from, three races to play as (elves, orcs, and men), and three race-specific quest-based campaigns with approximately 50 complex quests and hours of scripted gameplay.
Kingdom Wars - a single-player-exclusive Conquer-the-World mode, in which players can invade and conquer enemy strongholds while defending their own. This mode features three different ways to play, and is a great way to practice tactics and World Map navigation.
Lay Siege - this single-player skirmish mode allows players to put their skills to the test by using a supplied army to attack one of several NPC strongholds. There are a number of different options for this mode, including enabling mounted reinforcements, setting the difficulty of the enemy stronghold, and setting the season.
Castle Defense - Lay Siege's defensive counterpart enables players to practice defending an NPC stronghold from one or two AI armies. In this mode, players will have a few minutes before the attack to construct siege defenses and train troops to guard their stronghold and their king unit. As in Lay Siege, there are a number of customizable options including choosing the stronghold you wish to defend, the size and number of enemy armies, mounted reinforcements, and the number of enemy waves.
The Scenario Design Editor and Associated Tools - This utility puts the game's unrivaled power of creation into your hands, allowing fans to craft their own mighty citadels and script scenarios using the Lua scripting language, as adapted by Reverie World Studios. This is the very editor that was used to create all of DOF's scenarios and cinematics, including the World Map. In addition, there will be plenty of supplementary guides and tools to assist you in the design process.
Tutorials and Support - We understand that the concept of an MMORTS is new to many of you, so we made it a priority to provide as much (non-intrusive) instruction as possible. As such, the game features race-specific playable tutorial scenarios (available shortly after release) introducing players to key concepts - from homeland construction to resource gathering to world map interaction - that can be loaded from either the Main Menu or the Online Kingdom mode. The game also features a detailed Help menu, specific to each game mode, that can be opened at any point in the game. This menu features similar content as the playable tutorials in an easy-to-reference textual form. In addition, the Online Kingdom mode features introductory homeland-based quests to introduce the player to the game and the lore of Mythador. And finally, the game offers gameplay tips on every loading screen, a detailed Manual, and an active support system with developers roaming the in-game chat and forums to answer any remaining questions.

In addition, players who purchase a physical copy of the game will receive a poster of the game world of Mythador with scale models of all the NPC towns. This poster may be available as a stand-alone purchase at a later date for those who downloaded the game, perhaps at a discounted price for pre-order customers.

70 Influence points will be given to those who pre-order (http://shop.dawnoffantasy.com/) the downloadable copy. These points can then be used to hire exotic mercenary units in the Online Kingdom mode, or to purchase exclusive DLC content and future expansion packs.

Will there be additional subscription fees?

Nope! Our goal at Reverie is to provide an affordable, yet unlimited, gaming experience. Therefore, players can play online for as long as they want after purchasing the game with no additional fees. There will be some DLC (downloadable content packs) and expansion packs (the first of which introduce naval combat and magic), but these are entirely optional, and can be purchased from the DOF In-game Market at a modest price - and can even be purchased with in-game resources!

Will the DOF retail version be free of all those pesky beta bugs? What is Reverie World's (the developers of DOF) commitment to quality assurance and the future of Dawn of Fantasy?

While no game is completely free of bugs, we have worked diligently with our wonderful beta testers to remove all the known bugs prior to the game's release.

But rest assured that we will always keep a team dedicated to Dawn of Fantasy and to fixing bugs. The rough quality assurance plan is:

Stage 1 - October
-5 weeks in October - patch the game every 2nd day until we fix every single bug
-Rework core components - including pathfinding, game controls e.t.c

Stage 2 - November & December
-2 patches per week - working on balance, rare bugs, and minor issues here and there
-Add lots of free feature and content that we didn`t get a chance to add - fully Guilds and player interaction support, hero customization, various MMO features to bring up social aspect of the game, some new buildings and gameplay elements

Hope to see you in-game in a week, and be sure to register on our forums to post any questions you might have! But unless it's personal, please post your question rather than PM'ing or emailing it, as in a public environment, the question and answer can help everyone. :)

Yami-Yagari

09-24-2011, 06:01 AM

Looks very ambitious, can't wait to get it :D

ziogualty

09-28-2011, 04:15 AM

I love the "care-program" made of scheduled patches.

I'm playing a lot of games lately, expecially online (free to play and not) and their plans are not even close to your professional approach.

If u keep working this way, u can get a lot of customers not only for the beauty of the game, but for this serious, really professional and motivated plan to make the game better and better.

I'm impressed, just don't let me down! ;)

andreicde

09-28-2011, 11:17 AM

I love the "care-program" made of scheduled patches.

I'm playing a lot of games lately, expecially online (free to play and not) and their plans are not even close to your professional approach.

If u keep working this way, u can get a lot of customers not only for the beauty of the game, but for this serious, really professional and motivated plan to make the game better and better.

I'm impressed, just don't let me down! ;)

well the biggest issue I see atm is with players who don't bother to read updates and who try to compare price wise dof against f2p games who might have been on for years . Plus they seem to forget the shop doesn't make you buy power here unlike 99% of the other f2p games.